It was 2010 when Great Britain last had a man ranked in the top three in the world in the 100m backstroke in the shape of Liam Tancock. Not that the next man to achieve that feat would have known, because Ollie Morgan wasn’t watching. “I joined the sport really late, I didn’t really ever watch swimming” he says, speaking from the GB team’s preparation camp in Thailand. “I remember London 2012 but I couldn’t really remember specific swimmers.”

As the archetypal late bloomer Morgan is now the one that everyone else is watching, especially after his 52.12 blast over 100m backstroke at the British Championships thrust him to the sharp end of the world rankings. Not that those lofty heights are worrying him as he approaches his second world championships.

“I’ve definitely found since, say, my first worlds in 2023 and then moving on to the Olympics and now I’m at my Second World championships. I’ve just found that I’m so much more relaxed” he says, while acknowledging the opportunity that now presents itself. “It’s exciting to be going into a World Championships looking at a gold medal, almost, if we can replicate what we’ve done in the past and improve from trials again. I’m just just be excited to enjoy the process and see what happens.”

The “we” in there is him and coach Gary Humpage who has mentored this improvement from their base at the University of Birmingham. It’s a squad where Morgan is fully at ease. “At Birmingham, I’m really enjoying it. The relationship I have with Gary, my coach, the rest of the staff, you know, it’s like a big family almost and I’m just loving what I do. I enjoy training. I enjoy pushing myself.”

As the times have gotten quicker there has also needed to be a shift in focus from trying to make a national final to now trying to make an international podium and a new set of competitors.

“I think now it’s the mindset’s kind of shifted focusing on the British guys. There’s always guys on the world scene that are going to be faster than you.

“You watch your swims back and swimming next to Ryan Murphy, he’s taken a body length off me just on the turn. It’s like, what can we do then? If my turns are as good as his, there’s there’s a huge chunk of time there to take off.

“So it’s just trying to get those kind of like weaknesses that I had as you know, a swimmer and making them my strengths. It’s just constant progression”

Not that the growing British backstroke depth isn’t keeping him on his toes though, with this years trials final the fastest ever.

“Britain can produce world class backstrokers and you know it’s really showing now with the group that are coming in behind me” he says. “So it’s really exciting to see. The final that we had at trials – I think the time that came sixth would have would have won it two years ago. So it’s certainly exciting and it’s pushing me as well.”

But what of his Singapore expectations?

“Yeah, the pressure is really high. You have to perform on that day in that pool at that meet and it’s certainly a whole different experience from racing back at home. I guess so I’m just excited to, you know, challenge the best in the world.”

That challenge takes in all three backstroke events, perhaps with a view to an Olympic triple in LA, but Morgan is riding high in the 200 backstroke rankings after a victory at trials that opened at a furious pace and saw him unable to stand for the medal presentation.

“This year I’ve been really enjoying the 200 as well. Trials was an exciting swim, something that we planned on doing for a long time, but. I just never plucked up the courage to to do it, but I think that just showed the confidence that I had at that meet. it’s just going to be exciting now to see if we can kind of replicate that on the world scene, but hopefully come back a bit faster and maybe not hit the lane rope a couple times in the last fifty!”

But for all that, it’s to the two length event where most eyes will be trained in Singapore. It’s 18 years since Tancock won Britain’s last medal in that event with bronze in Melbourne; Morgan wasn’t watching then but if he replicates that feat in 2025, there will be plenty watching him.